Ifla Zafar
(IIUI)
According to the Billboard charts and the music industry in general, World Music is the fastest growing category of music today. Interest in international music is increasing rapidly, not only in the Pakistan, but all over the world. Influences of World Music can be heard in pop, rock, and many styles of modern music, as though ancient spirits are coming back to life.
Many of you are probably asking the same questions: “What exactly is World Music, and why is it becoming so popular”? The words that come to mind, such as ethnic, cultural, indigenous, traditional and tribal call up an image of a drum circle around a good fire and a feeling of prayerful connectedness to the Earth. However, World Music is basically any music that is flavored by native culture. The people of our planet have been playing and developing music for many thousands of years, and the songs are so alive that you can feel their ancient power and wisdom.
Just forming a sense of what World Music is begins to explain its tremendous popularity. Because of its universality, people all over the world are using it to help them get in touch with their global roots. With the advances of modern technology and the exponential growth of the Internet, we are realizing what a gigantic planet we live on, and at the same time finding that distant places are no longer so far away. We can now have direct access to almost all of the world’s cultures, and we are just beginning to taste some of the exotic flavors of places we never knew existed.
There is also underlying thread that unites us all, of which many have some awareness, but few have accepted and integrated into their lives. World Music calls to us because we have all lived many lifetimes in many different places all over the world. Reincarnation has long been forgotten in Western civilization, although there are many cultures where the people still feel their soul-connectedness strongly, and accept it as a fact of everyday life. Have you ever heard a song for the first time and felt that it was vaguely familiar to you, as though it was calling you back to a distant time and place? Certain instruments may strike a chord within your consciousness as you wonder what this beautiful sound is and why it makes you feel so warm and fuzzy.
This is a time of great reawakening for many who are alive today. Through music, we are realizing our interconnectedness and our true relationship with our planet, ourselves, and our newly discovered “Global Family.” People all over the world are waking up to the fact that essentially we are all one. As we experience this sense of oneness with all of life, we tear down walls that have caused suffering since the human race first began to crawl. We are removing fear from this planet.
The spirit of the World Music is ablaze everywhere. As we open our arms to the world, we expand our horizons to infinity, and create the paradise this planet has been yearning for since its birth. This planet which we so often take for granted is a living, breathing, conscious being. The soul that we walk on is the living flesh our own Mother Earth.
Friends, celebrate life through music. Bring music into your lives and take a journey unlike anything you’ve ever dared to dream. Explore the world through your own inner being and come to know your eternal soul. You are the all that is one, now.
In the words of one of the world’s most famous musicians of all time, “One good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain.” — Bob Nesta Marley.